Diesel fuel prices fall for the third consecutive week

| Tuesday, April 01, 2014

The average price of a gallon of on-highway diesel dropped 1.3 cents to $3.975 per gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Diesel prices fell in 9 of 10 regions in the U.S., according to the EIA. The largest average decrease came in the Central Atlantic Region, where prices at the pump dropped by 3.6 cents per gallon. Prices increased in the Gulf Coast Region by just a fraction of a cent.

Following are the average prices by region as reported by the EIA:

U.S. – $3.975, down 1.3 cents

East Coast – $4.094, down 2.1 cents

New England – $4.255, down 2.4 cents

Central Atlantic – $4.241, down 3.6 cents

Lower Atlantic – $3.955, down eight-tenths of a cent

Midwest – $3.959, down 1.6 cents

Gulf Coast – $3.804, up four-tenths cents

Rocky Mountain – $3.975, down nine-tenths cents

West Coast – $3.990, down 1.9 cents

West Coast less California – $3.908, down 1.7 cents

California – $4.060, down 2.1 cents

ProMiles, the software company that maintains the websites ProMiles.com and TruckMiles.com, continues to offer its own weekly fuel price information. The company’s fuel price data are presented in the same format used by the EIA in the agency’s weekly reports. The prices include a national average as well as regional averages, and comparisons to the previous week and the previous year.

A key difference between the EIA and ProMiles reporting is the type and number of fueling stations the company surveys in order to calculate its averages. While EIA surveys 400 truck stops and convenience stores nationwide, ProMiles uses its direct feed from thousands of truck stops to develop its averages.

According to ProMiles, the average retail price at truck stops was $3.914 on Monday morning, a decrease of about 1.8 cents compared to last week.

TruckMiles.com listed the daily average price for Tuesday at $3.973, with truckers in Connecticut paying an average of $4.491 per gallon, the highest in the nation. Truckers in Oregon are paying only $3.513 per gallon, according to the site. Truckers in 18 of the Lower 48 states are paying in excess of $4 per gallon at the pump.

In separate energy news, according to the New York Mercantile Exchange, light sweet crude for May delivery was trading at $101.31 on Monday afternoon, a near-high close in three weeks. Bloomberg reports that the high prices could be due to further sanctions against Russia to prevent movement into Ukraine. The price of Brent crude oil was listed at $107.81, maintaining a 14-day peak speculated to be a result of supply disruption from Libya, according to Bloomberg.